BAT-21 (5 page)

A secondary explosion triggered by one of the
bombed supply trucks sent a towering pillar of smoke into the sky.
"Bingo!" chortled Hambleton aloud. "You guys win the
fur-lined gaboon."

"Birddog from Gumshoe," came the low
voice of the Skyraider leader. "Heads up. Coming in with a
strafe."

"Earn your flight pay," came back
Birddog.

Once again the planes streaked in, propellers
screaming, smoke streaming from their wings as they fired their 20-mm
cannons into the war machinery that glutted the highway. For five
minutes the attack was pressed. Then the Skyraider leader checked out
with Birddog. "Hello, Birddog from Gumshoe. We're Winchester.
Want us to reload and come back?"

"Gumshoe from Birddog. Reload and stand by at
base. The sports cars are coming in now."

"Wilco."

"Nice shootin', Gumshoe. I'm buying the
drinks."

"I heard that, Birddog. Gumshoe out."

As Hambleton observed the attack he had noticed
several antiaircraft batteries opening up around him. He had been
right. The intersection was ringed with ack-ack. Hambleton had
actually felt the ground tremble from the recoil of some
heavier-caliber weapons as they tried to shoot down the feinting
Sandys that zoomed in at rice-paddy level to foil the radar and
computers.

The first batteries firing nearby had scared the
devil out of him. He had mistaken the booming of the heavy guns for
incoming bombs, and couldn't figure out why the friendlies were
bombing so close. Then he had observed the flashes of the guns. The
ack-ack shells exploding overhead rained down tiny pieces of pot
metal like buckshot, and he was glad he had worn his helmet.

Each time he saw either one of the large guns or
multiple implacements of automatic weapons fire, he made a mental
note of their camouflaged positions and spotted them on his survival
map. Then he called Birddog.

"Birddog, Bat Twenty-one. Ack-ack guns on
hill thirty-one."

"Roger, Bat. Stand by," said Birddog.

"Birddog from Crabtree, over," said a
voice twanging with a Texas accent.

"Roger, Crabtree. Birddog here."

"We're on station at nineteen grand. We have
eight seven- hundred-fiftys and six five-hundred-pound snake eyes and
twenty mike mike."

"Roger, Crabtree. Primary target fairly well
clobbered. Ack-ack guns reported on hill thirty-one. See if you can
pull their plug. Come in when ready."

"Roger, Birddog," came the voice that
sounded like a guitar twang. "Comin' in."

It was the first time Hambleton had seen Phantoms
in action close up. He had bent elbows with some of the F-4 pilots at
the bar: blowtorch jockeys who generally wore white scarves and
cowboy boots and who all seemed to hail from Texas. They tended to be
a bit tiresome on the subject of the big two-place aircraft they
flew, but probably they had reason to be proud. The F-4 Phantom was
easily the greatest fighter plane of the decade, destined to take its
place in the Air Force hall of fame alongside such famous craft as
the Thunderbolt, the Mustang, and the Sabre. Crammed with
sophisticated electronics gear, armed with both missiles and cannon,
it could go more than twice as fast as the speed of sound. And thanks
to its impressive ordnance-carrying capacity (up to sixteen thousand
pounds), the Phantom was as formidable in ground attack as it was in
its pure fighter role.

Hambleton watched the monstrous jets howl in at
mind- boggling speed, hugging the deck. They put in their ordnance
with precise accuracy, clobbering the hill he had pointed out.

Hambleton saw one of the heavy guns, a 100-mm,
actually leap into the air. A direct hit—"Banzai!" he
muttered. "That'll teach you bastards to shoot down defenseless
old navigators!"

"How we all doin' down there?" asked the
jets' leader.

"Stand by, Crabtree. Birddog to Bat
Twenty-one. How are we doing?"

Hambleton transmitted. "Birddog from Bat.
Doin' fine. Make next pass a hundred yards east of the last one."

"Roger, Bat. Nice having the coach right on
the field calling the shots."

"That's a matter of opinion "

Hambleton listened as Birddog relayed his message
to the jets' leader. They came in again. And again. From his vantage
point Hambleton could direct the assault with deadly accuracy. Even
six large tanks covered with camouflage netting at the side of the
road were quickly reduced to scrap metal.

In pass after pass the Phantoms barreled in over
the target with their loads of destruction. Dropping low like great
sinister birds of prey, they unleashed their miniature hurricanes of
fire and steel, then whined back up into the heavens. When the last
of their ordnance had been expended the F-4 leader bade the FAC a
cheery good-bye and the whole dark flock thundered off to the nest
from which they had come.

It was again comparatively quiet, but through the
ringing in his ears Hambleton could hear the crackling of fires and
the muted moaning of men. As a participant in the attack, Hambleton's
adrenaline had been pumping overtime. He had been calling the shots
to Birddog—"Make another pass a hundred yards left of the last
one," or "Repeat that last strike on hill thirty-two, but
fifty yards more to the right to get that bunker." He had
reveled in the joy of the gladiator, meting out punishment to an
adversary who had punished him.

But now, in the quiet aftermath of the battle, his
glands no longer gearing him for combat, he felt a strange aftershock
as he surveyed the carnage before him. The twisted carcasses of metal
monsters were strewn along the roads before him as far as he could
see. The intersection was a burning, bomb-cratered funeral pyre
sending billowing smoke and the acrid smell of cordite into the sky.
Bodies were strewn along the roads, strange, unreal marionettes with
severed strings.

He shook his head numbly. As a professional
military flyer he was no stranger to military operations or the grim
ravages of war. But until now his participation—as deadly dangerous
as it had been—had always been detached from the grisly reality of
close- quarter ground combat. Wrapped in a clean, pristine aluminum
envelope, he had done his fighting miles above the scene. It had
almost been a computer game—his electronic sophistication matched
against that of the enemy in the crisp blue skies of the upper
atmosphere.

Down here it was no game. Down here were the guts,
gore, and grime of war. Here were the end results of man's inhumanity
to man honed to the highest degree of technical expertise. The
science of combat had been elevated to the highest art—if art it
was to efficiently turn healthy human beings into fertilizer!

Hambleton felt his stomach churning. Maybe he was
going to be sick. He turned away and ran a clammy hand across his
face.

"Bat Twenty-one from Birddog."

He picked up his radio. "Come in, Birddog.
Bat Twenty-one."

"Quite a little show, eh, Bat?"

"Roger. Quite a little show."

"Much action down there?"

"Quiet. Gomers are licking their wounds."

"You're a helluva coach. We just might leave
you down there."

"Please, no favors."

"We got a problem."

"Oh? I didn't know we had any problems."

"Gooks bound to know you got a ringside seat
observing their activities. They're going to double their efforts to
get to you."

"Then I suggest we double our efforts to get
me the hell out of here."

"Exactly our plan. Rescue choppers are
airborne. Have your flares ready. But don't pop smoke until you hear
from Jolly Green. You can monitor them on this frequency."

"Roger!" His nausea eclipsed by suddenly
soaring spirits. Hambleton dug out his flares. There was an open area
not far away in which a chopper could land. When he got the word he
would dash out there and ignite his flares.

Hugging the ground, he listened for the familiar
clattering sound of helicopter rotors. There would be two coming
in—one for rescue, the other a gunship for its protection. And of
course there would be his Birddog above the scene to call in the jets
or the Sandys to shoot up anything that moved while he sprinted for
the pickup point. Hot damn! He would soon be ordering a tall, frosty
beer....

In the distance he heard them coming. Hambleton
poised, ready to sprint. He had his radio volume turned up so as not
to miss any transmissions from the rescue-chopper pilot. Closer and
closer the sound came, and then, craning his neck up over the
foliage, he could see them. Coming in low and fast. He flexed his leg
muscles, ready to go....

Suddenly hades erupted. Antiaircraft opened up in
front of him, 23-mm, 37-mm, and 57-mm automatic guns spraying a wall
of iron into the air. Small-arms fire began banging like popcorn.

"What the bloody hell!" Hambleton
shouted. He spun around, dazed. Where in God's name had those guns
come from? Nothing could have survived the aerial attack just
delivered on the intersection. Yet here were guns sending up a
curtain of fire he could barely see through....

From the villages to the east! Guns dug in among
the villages that had been spared by the fighters to avoid killing
civilians; guns heavily entrenched and camouflaged, out of sight of
fighters or the FAC.

There was absolutely no way for the choppers to
get through the barrier of lead being thrown up. Yet on they came,
chuffing toward him! He could see the gray smoke from the machine
guns firing in the lead gunship.

Summoned by Birddog, a gaggle of F-4's came
wheeling down out of the sun, trying to pinpoint the guns, firing at
flashes, frustrated and unable to deliver a full-fledged attack on
the off- limits villages.

The choppers were less than a mile away when
Hambleton heard a crisp transmission that froze his blood.

"Birddog from Jolly Green. Sorry. Picked up a
round in my engine. Aborting."

Despair hung like lead on Birddog's
acknowledgment. "Roger, Jolly Green."

Hambleton watched, the emotion draining from him.
The choppers banked over sharply and clattered back in the direction
from which they had come. The rescue chopper was trailing a wisp of
blue smoke. As the Jolly Greens disappeared from view, the F-4's
broke off their attack to escort the helicopters back to their base.

Several minutes passed before Birddog broke radio
silence. "Bat Twenty-one from Birddog. Sorry as hell, Bat. But
we'll get you out. Can you dig in for the night?"

Hambleton tried to muster a cheerfulness that died
aborning. "Roger, Birddog."

"Good man. Keep in touch. Birddog out."

Feeling nothing, Hambleton unconsciously stuffed
his flares back into his survival vest. He could only return to his
hole and dig in. As he prepared to sneak back through the brush, he
took one last look at the desolation of the highway intersection.

But it was desolate no longer. Incredibly, the
place was teeming with activity. Like a busy anthill that had had its
top kicked off, the whole area was swarming with parties of soldiers.
To accommodate the incoming traffic from the north, the roads were
already being cleared. Burning and bombed-out trucks and weapons
carriers were being shoved to the side of the road, the injured and
dead thrown into trucks, and a new stream of traffic was threading
its way through the wreckage. Troops were everywhere, barking out
orders and acknowledgments in shrill Vietnamese.

Hambleton swore. It was going to take some doing
to sanitize this area. Like trying to plug up the Mississippi with a
cork. If new personnel and equipment were already swarming in after
the blistering Armageddon of only a few minutes ago, how in hell
would they ever get a Jolly Green in to pick him up?

He dragged himself back through the underbrush to
his hole. Numbly he crawled in, unholstered his .38, donned his
mosquito netting, and covered himself up. His tongue was dry and his
lips were parched. He was incredibly thirsty. It had been over
twenty- four hours since he had had anything to drink.

Toward dusk, the ground fog started stealing back
in, rolling across the fields and slipping silently among the trees.
It found Hambleton's hole and settled gently into it, like some
melancholy emblem of his own sinking spirits.

Captain Dennis Clark herded his tall frame through
the door of the flight-line maintenance shack, went over to the
coffee urn and poured himself a cup of coffee. He took it over to the
broken-down sofa that served as the flight-line roost, sat down, and
hiked his cowboy boots up on the champagne crate that served as a
coffee table. He was bushed.

"Hey, Denny!" Clark looked up to see the
short figure of Jake Campbell swinging through the door.

"How they hangin', Jake?"

"Ops said you just landed. Come on."

"Where we going?"

"To the club. Where else?"

"Can't do it, Jake. Going up again. Soon as
they refuel my bird."

Campbell checked his watch. "You crazy, man?
Hell, it's after midnight. There's a big party going on over at the
club. Got a couple girls from the Special Service's troupe corraled
in the bar. We're having a farewell party."

"Outstanding. Who's leaving?"

Campbell gave him a slap on the shoulder. "You
are, old stud. Your orders came in this afternoon."

Clark put down his cup. "Say again?"

"I repeat. Your orders came in this
afternoon."

"Back to the States?"

"Right on. Back to the land of the big BX.
You've finished your tour in this garden paradise, old man."

"The hell!"

"As your old roommate and only friend, I've
taken the liberty of booking you on a flight leaving for the States
tomorrow." He looked at his watch again. "Correction. Make
that today. Sorry I couldn't get you on a flight leaving sooner."